Retro study
The watershed-scale
retrospective study
retrospective study
Group: Bernard Bormann, Ross Kiester, John Tappeiner, John Hayes, Kermit Cromack,
We will
identify comparisons to be studied among
the 1330 managed stands (about
33,000 acres) interlaced between natural
forests (also 33,000 acres) in the
watershed. The complexity of
Five Rivers history
has been importantly limited by the Yaquina fire of 1849, which burned most trees and logs; uniform soil parent material (Tyee sandstone); and predominant (81%) federal ownership. We will evaluate 8 measures and indicators of long-term productivity and biodiversity across 3 scales, plots (0.1 ac), stands (40 ac), and roadsheds (1300 ac); different disturbance and management regimes; different topographic
has been importantly limited by the Yaquina fire of 1849, which burned most trees and logs; uniform soil parent material (Tyee sandstone); and predominant (81%) federal ownership. We will evaluate 8 measures and indicators of long-term productivity and biodiversity across 3 scales, plots (0.1 ac), stands (40 ac), and roadsheds (1300 ac); different disturbance and management regimes; different topographic
positions and
soils; and different proximities to other stand or landscape
patterns—using various techniques, including exploratory data analysis,
classification and regression
trees, and visualization. We will emphasize factors that emerge as scale is increased, such as forest roads and patterns
created by adaptive management.
The goal of our retrospective study is to
better understand important management, disturbance, and other biophysical processes
driving long-term productivity and biodiversity—based on an interpretation model focused on
evaluating the interplay between societal (managers’ intentions) and biophysical
mechanisms, as a way to extend insight and inference to other places and intentions. The retrospective study—based on a
comprehensive watershed-wide GIS system with all historical and
management-related data and images collected on the 76,330-acre watershed—complements
the landscape experiment by:
Learning what we can from what has already happened;
Providing baseline pretreatment data for the experiment; and
Fine-tuning hypotheses and treatments to be tested rigorously in
the experiment.
Providing baseline pretreatment data for the experiment; and
Fine-tuning hypotheses and treatments to be tested rigorously in
the experiment.
Summary
The 76,330-acre Five Rivers watershed
The landscape experiment